


Swirling Into Darkness

by starspangledmanwithaplan



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Blood, Blood As Lube, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Clint Barton, Dark fic, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Language, Murder, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Oral Sex, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Revenge, Ronin Clint Barton, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Sex, Sexual Content, Threats of Violence, Vaginal Sex, Violence, again i say dark fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:08:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21768016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starspangledmanwithaplan/pseuds/starspangledmanwithaplan
Summary: Clint Barton has taken on a new moniker. He is no longer Hawkeye. He is now Ronin, and he is hungry for revenge.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Reader, Clint Barton/You, clint barton/female reader
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	Swirling Into Darkness

This can be considered a companion piece to [**Heaven Don’t Have A Name**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21239417), though you don’t have to read that in order to read this.

* * *

He wasn’t quite sure when it happened, when his affinity for avenging turned to acts of revenge. Sure, he could say that Thanos dusting half the population was what made him go mad, rouge, sent him on a killing spree, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the truth. No, the truth was much darker than that, more insidious. 

The truth was he liked it. He liked slaughtering the drug dealers and pimps, the traffickers and kingpins. He relished in the hot spray of ruby blood against his skin, the pungent scent of iron, heavy on the back of his tongue, bitter, acrid. He savored the wet squelch of skin and muscles being torn to shreds by his blades. Their last breath, rattling in their chests, bones knocking together like chimes in the wind was music to his ears. 

He was no longer Hawkeye. He was Ronin, and he  _ liked _ it.

It was  _ her _ fault, really; his goddess, his temptress, his  _ Aphrodite _ . That wasn’t her name, though. She had never divulged that information. Of all the things they had been through, of all the things they had  _ done _ , she kept that one thing from him. 

It didn’t bother him as much as one would think. 

_ Istanbul, March, 2020 _

_ That prick had the  _ ** _nerve_ ** _ to put his hands on her. Jameson Reynolds, trafficker of fourteen-year-old girls across International borders, smelled of stale beer, regret, and cigarettes, his teeth and nails stained with nicotine, a poor excuse of a mustache atop his lip. Clint saw red. His vision pulsed with murderous desire, but the goddess… she giggled like a fucking schoolgirl.  _

_ “What are you laughing about, bitch,” he snarled, spittle flying from his mouth.  _

_ A wicked smirk tugged at Clint’s lips when sparks skittered to life on her hands. “By the time you figure it out, jackass, it’ll be too late,” he informed the trafficker. _

_ “Put down the knife, or I put her down like a dog,” Reynolds demanded of the newly-born Ronin, reaching for the pistol at the small of his back.  _

_ “The only one going down like a dog will be you,” she chuckled, turning her head to smear blackberry-stained lips against his cheek a split-second before flames erupted from her hands.  _

_ God, the shrill pitch of Reynold’s screams sent goosebumps down Clint’s spine. He rolled his neck, groaning appreciatively at the stretch of muscle, the almost-silent pop-pop-pop of his cervical vertebra.  _

_ Natasha used to smack him for that, a fist to his shoulder, palm to the back of his head, followed by, “When you break your neck doing that, Barton, I ain’t dragging your ass to the hospital.” But Natasha wasn’t there, and what Natasha didn’t know wouldn't hurt her, right? _

_ Right. _

_ Reynolds was on the floor, rolling around, trying to put out the flames, but what he didn’t know was that the goddess standing over him, cackling like an old witch, kept the flames alive. They never wavered, never extinguished, never let up.  _

_ “Finish him off, sweetheart,” Clint instructed darkly. “We may draw too much attention.” _

_ “I like the attention,” she cooed, batting those too-thick eyelashes at him.  _

_ Blood rushed to his groin and he palmed himself through his pants to try and alleviate some of the ache. “Baby, please.”  _

_ Was he begging her to finish the job so he could delve into Heaven between her legs, or was he begging her to continue her torture on Reynolds? He didn’t know. Either way, he was happy.  _

_ With obsidian flames flickering in her eyes, she licked her lips, smearing blackberry lacquer further onto her skin. Then, with a clench of her fists, the flames tripled in size and Reynold’s screams went shriller yet before suddenly cutting out. The silence was deafening. _

_ “Finally,” Clint gasped, knife silently sliding into its sheath as he strode across the room to pin her to the wall, tongue delving deep into her mouth, fingers ripping apart her ridiculously-short shorts, pressing himself into her again and again until he shattered.  _

It wasn’t that Clint didn’t like being an Avenger, doing good, saving people’s lives, saving the fucking  _ planet _ over and  _ over _ again. He did, but he didn’t enjoy it, not truly. He wasn’t like Steve, America’s Golden Boy with the attitude problem. He wasn’t like Tony, a man with too much money and a shitty case of PTSD. Hell, he wasn’t even like Natasha, doing her damnedest to atone for the  _ obscene _ amount of red in her ledger. 

He had always wanted to  _ do _ bad things, but he never thought it could be like this. He never once imagined that he would  _ enjoy _ it, savor it,  _ live _ for it. 

_ Belize, August, 2021 _

_ They had been tailing this guy, Johnny Star (yeah, for real), for three weeks. Johnny had been lacing his product with a hallucinogenic that’s been known to drive people crazy. Like, bash-their-own-heads-against-concrete-walls-until-their-brains-turn-to-jelly-because-it-feels-good kind of crazy. Thirty people had died, and rumor had it he had a shipment going out at the end of the month.  _

_ So, why hadn’t they made their move? Because that’s all they were going on right then; rumors, speculation, half-truths, partial omissions.  _

_ Jose said this. Rosario mentioned that. Pablo swore he saw it happen. Maria was a jilted lover that just wanted a cut. And oh, did the goddess gave her a cut. Helfire blade across the jugular. A flick of her wrist at the end. Wide eyes, a gurgling gasp, and then blood spilled like a waterfall. Down, down,  _ ** _down_ ** _ it cascaded, pooled on the floor, splashing as Maria toppled over. _

_ Maria’s blood wasn’t even cold when Clint bent the goddess over a table, flipped up the flimsy charmeuse skirt she wore, and took her from behind. Muscled thighs slapped her ass with every harsh thrust, gloved-hands gripped her ivory skin tight, leaving behind purple-blue divots. She would gasp, an uh-uh-uh-uh-y-ye-yes stuttering out of her, hands scrambling for purchase on the dusty piano, crude sounds of sex echoing disjointed musical notes.  _

_ Fifteen minutes later, while she was skipping down the street in the rain, Clint’s phone went off.  _

_ “Let’s go get us a bad guy,” he snarled.  _

He was spiraling, swirling ‘round the drain faster and faster until he couldn’t see anything but blood and  _ her _ . Destruction and sex. Death and  _ fucking _ . It was a beautiful sight, a sight he never wanted to go without seeing, a sight that made his cock twitch with  _ extreme  _ interest.

_ Minsk, December, 2021 _

_ It was a balmy twenty-eight degrees outside, crisp white flecks filtering down from the sky. The flakes landed almost noiselessly as the pool of crimson spread ever wider. Though he was dying, Ivor Ivanović’s body was still warm, his lungs still drew breath, and his heart beat, though each beat was slower than the previous.  _

_ Clint’s hands were bloodstained; one between her plush thighs, the other at her throat, squeezing,  _ ** _squeezing_ ** _ . The sounds coming from the goddess were crude, wet, and obscene. She was begging for more, urging Clint to go, “Faster, harder. There, oh gods, right there.” _

_ “That’s it, baby,” Clint crooned, twisting his wrist, curling his fingers, teeth on her earlobe.  _

_ She had her head thrown back against the side of the truck, frigid metal digging into her ass as she came, whimpering his name as she licked Ivor’s blood from her fingers. _

_ The fight had been brutal; hand-to-hand, Ivor’s favorite. When he cheated, she took it upon herself to teach him a lesson. She yanked both of his arms out of the sockets with her bare hands, throwing them to the side like trash, and shoved a hand deep into his chest, gripping his heart,  _ ** _squeeeeeeezing _ ** _ it until his eyes bulged, her sharp nails ready to pierce the fluttering muscle in her palm.  _

_ “Say you’re sorry, Ivor,” she ground out, venomous murder in her eyes. “Say you’re sorry and mean it.” _

_ “I’m sorry,” he gasped. He would have fallen to his knees if an ethereal goddess wasn’t holding him up, his rib-cage resting on her forearm.  _

_ She gave a minute shake of her head, mind clearly made up. “I don’t believe you,” she chirped. Half a second later, her thumb nail glided through his right ventricle.  _

_ Clint had his hand between her legs before Ivor’s knees hit the ground. _

Natasha would be utterly ashamed of him if she knew what he had done and who he had killed. The numbers, when he  _ really _ thought about it, were staggering, shocking, mind-numbing. If he was still an Avenger, if he was still interested in saving the crumbling and destitute world, he would lock up anyone that boasted those kind of numbers. 

Only, Clint wasn’t an Avenger, and he didn’t care about the decaying world anymore. All that mattered was the goddess and making the bad guys pay for their crimes. Nothing more. Nothing less. 

_ Toronto, February, 2022 _

_ She was in Clint’s lap, thighs caging his in, concrete digging into her knees as she rode the archer. He ripped open her lace shirt and marked her with his teeth, mesmerized by the blood just beneath the surface. Goddess or not, it wouldn’t take much to pierce her skin, to see the liquid crimson bead up, begging to be sucked down. He had done it before. He would do it again. He  _ ** _longed_ ** _ to do it again. _

_ Since Ivor, the duo had taken a liking to  _ ** _almost_ ** _ killing their mark before ravishing one another.  _

_ This time, it was a woman named Kelly Connolly. She had been funneling bricks of coke through the local college for almost five years, the same college she taught at. One night, a student found her stash, stole it, and promptly sold it. Fifteen people died from overdosing. Turns out, the powder was pure, too fucking pure for consumption. _

_ Now, Kelly laid there, impaled by a katana, blood spilling from her nose and mouth, breath catching raggedly in her throat as the goddess fucked Clint. The wet sounds of their bodies drowned out her last rattling breath.  _

Natasha had been calling for a month, desperate to see him, to talk to him. About what, Clint didn’t know. He never listened to the messages, and he deleted the texts without reading them. He even blocked the number, but she was fucking resourceful, he’d give her that. 

He changed numbers five times before throwing his cell phone into the Atlantic.

_ Palm Springs, April, 2022 _

_ They were more discreet this time, they had to be. It was a public affair, a fundraiser for the families who had lost someone during The Snap. Every town had one, every year, in memoriam of the fallen. Clint scoffed. He hated these things. Why couldn’t people just get over it and move on, huh? He had lost almost everything and he managed to move on!  _

_ Acting as the bartender, the goddess slipped some poison into the mayor’s glass. Intel said he was dirty, that he was going to use the money to buy himself a gift; a trafficked young woman by the name of Maggie Sitwell. What the mayor didn’t know was that Maggie was back with her family. The men that had been watching her were bleeding out in the hotel room fifteen floors up, and that the liquor he had greedily swallowed would be the last thing he tasted in about five, four, three… _

_ Clint grabbed her hand and tugged. “Come on.” _

_ “Hold on, baby,” she cooed, eyes impossibly wide. “I just want to see -” _

_ Someone screamed as the mayor started choking up blood.  _

_ “Ah, there it is.”  _

_ Clint pulled her out of the room as chaos erupted, shoved her into a closet, rucked her skirt up, and buried his face between her legs.  _

Clint saw Rhodey last week, and he about launched a katana into his forehead. He played it cool, though, pretended he didn’t see the limping, once respected, Lieutenant Colonel. The goddess pressed herself to his side, and asked if he wanted her to take care of it.

“No,” he bit out. “He’s my friend.”

“ _ Was _ your friend,” she clarified casually, her attention suddenly captured by a stray dog on the corner. 

When Clint turned around, Rhodey was gone. He had no doubt Rhodey would be telling Natasha  _ all _ about what he had seen, and if he knew Rhodey as well as he claimed, Rhodey had seen a lot.

_ Bermuda, July, 2022 _

_ Clint drew his tongue over the wound on her neck and swallowed the bitter tang of her blood. She shivered and gasped, stretched alongside him, their bodies sweat-slicked and naked in the shade of a tree.  _

_ “Baby,” she mused, fingers on his shoulders, in his hair.  _

_ He hummed, nosing into her neck, arousal still clinging to him.  _

_ “You know what we should do?” _

_ Another hum, thick fingers skimming down her belly to the sticky curls between her legs.  _

_ A gasp left her as he touched her. Purple-tipped fingers squeezed his shoulder, his touch igniting the unquellable desire within. “We should leave this place.” _

_ “And do what, my Aphrodite?” he purred, fingers curling and twisting. _

_ She was gasping as euphoria blazed through her, sweat ran in rivulets from her hairline. Clint swirled his tongue around her nipples, drawing them into tight peaks. “We…  _ ** _fuck_ ** _ , we can ru- rule a land together. You and me,” she answered breathlessly.  _

_ Clint maneuvered himself between her shaking thighs, the wide head of his cock bumping into her clit, sending her reeling. “I thought you liked it here.” _

_ “I do, baby,” she cried out, a thigh hooking around his. “I just think that -” her voice trailed off into a high-pitched keen as Clint’s fingers were replaced by his thick cock, stretching her velvet heat.  _

_ “Tell me, Aphrodite,” he growled in her ear, tight and controlled thrusts making his back arch, his knees sinking deeper into the blanket-covered sand. “What do you want?” _

_ “You.” It was a scream, scaring the birds in the trees, sending them into the powder blue sky. “By my side, ruling a weak and desperate people.” _

_ Clint’s teeth marred the perfect curve of her shoulder. “I’ll go with you,” he promised, tangling his fingers in her hair and tugging harshly. _

_ She hissed at the sting of pain amidst pleasure. “You will make a wondrous and ruthless king.” _

_ “Make me like you,” Clint pleaded, eyes dark.  _

_ He was tired of being a mortal, of risking his life with every act of revenge. He was damn good at what he did, but he was only human, after all. He could die tomorrow and never see his goddess again. He had already lost so much, the universe owed him that much.  _

_ She came with a gritty curse, nails drawing blood from him, thighs shaking. “Anything you want.”  _

Clint felt  _ incredible _ . Even when he was younger and in the best shape of his life paled in comparison to the way he felt now. Power, raw and dark, surged through his veins. He was being rebuilt from the inside out; bones rebuilding themselves, muscles thickening. It was the most painful thing he’d ever experienced, but when the searing heat of it  _ finally _ ebbed, Clint was a god. His eyes shone, crackling with power he’d only seen Thor harness on several occasions. He was other-worldly strong, and fuck, he was  _ itching _ for a fight. 

“One last stop,” she murmured, berry-stained lips against his, hand down the front of his pants. “And then we’ll leave this wretched place.” She dropped to her knees and swallowed him down, unmaking him almost as quickly as he had been remade.

They found themselves in Tokyo, and he didn’t even remember  _ how _ they got there. It didn’t matter. His entire body was thrumming with power and the urge to bathe in the blood of  _ that fucking guy right there _ . That guy happened to be the leader of the Yakuza, and he was too busy passing around the girl he had just ‘finished with’ to notice they were being watched. 

Even though he didn’t necessarily need it, Clint unsheathed his katana, and dove into the group, gleefully and savagely dispatching them, all while his temptress watched, a proud smile on her lips. With the rest of the Yakuza defeated, the fight between the leader and Clint spilled into the empty streets. Rain poured down on them as their katanas clashed, a shimmer of sparks amid the rain. 

Clint was having fun letting the mere human believe he stood a chance. He held back, feigned exhaustion, even let the other blade get too close for comfort, not giving any hint at the power he contained. Until he caught sight of a redhead in the corner of his eye. 

Aided by inhuman speed and accuracy, Clint slid the katana into his opponent’s chest. It slid through like a hot knife through butter, stopping once the hilt was to his chest. Clint kicked him down, pulling the blade free just as Natasha stepped out of the shadows. 

“Barton,” she called out, the heavy rain drowning her out. “What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like, Romanoff,” he snarled, standing tall, much taller than he was the last time they were together. “These men have wronged so many people. You would know if you weren’t busy hiding behind -”

“You have no idea what I’ve been doing,” she hissed, venomous, full of loathing. Not only were they no longer comrades, they were no longer friends, family. 

Clint rolled his eyes and sighed. “What do you want, Natasha?”

The petite assassin shoved aside every negative thought and feeling she felt for him at that moment in time and held out her hand. “Come home, Clint.”

“Home? With you?” he snorted. 

His goddess emerged from the shadows, a cocky smirk on her lips. “He’s coming with me. We will make our own home. One where he will be revered.”

Natasha’s eyes hadn’t moved from the man that had once saved her life. “We can reverse the entire thing, we can save all of those people, Clint. You just… you have to come home.”

“And if I don’t?” Long fingers flexed around the handle of his blade, blood still dripping from the shining metal. “What are you going to do?”

She squared her shoulders. “I’ll make you. You forget, I’m a lot stronger than you.” 

The Red Room and all the torturous evil that had been done to her made her faster and stronger than any human alive. There was only one problem with her assumption, Clint was no longer human. Clint grinned wickedly, eyes glimmering in the dark. He strode toward the woman he was supposed to ‘dispose of’ all those years ago and bent down until his nose was brushing against hers. He always did like things up close and personal. 

“You may have survived the snap, Natasha, but you’ll never survive me,” he growled, showing her the evil that lay within. “I’m not the same man I was five years ago.” 

Natasha’s eyes went wide and she stumbled back a step, fingers pressed to her lips. “You’d give up Laura, the  _ kids _ for… for power, for a piece of  _ ass _ ?”

Clint ground his teeth, painfully hard, almost cracking the enamel. “They’re gone, Nat. Blew away on the wind, and nothing you can say will bring them back.”

“We have a plan,” Natasha insisted, tears flooding her eyes. “If you could just -”

“I’ve moved on. You should, too.” Clint spun on his heel, hand outstretched for the goddess, his soon-to-be queen. 

Natasha groaned and moved to tackle her old friend, but the goddess stopped her, rage in her eyes, simmering in her blood. She pinned the redhead to the concrete, water splashing loudly, a pained grunt leaving Natasha. She scrambled, legs kicking and twisting, hands gripping a sodden shirt, a string of curses fogging the air between them. Having had enough, the goddess applied the right amount of pressure, making the Avenger suck in a raspy breath. 

“You fight like a soaked cat,” she laughed, rich and thick. “Now, we are leaving, and it would be in your best interest not to pursue us. Do I make myself clear,  _ Romanova _ ?” 

Ever stubborn, Natasha didn’t answer, wouldn’t give her the satisfaction, until more pressure was applied. Natasha’s eyes went wide and she tapped the leg that was crushing her windpipe. 

Even as a god, an indestructible being, Clint didn’t like to see his old friend hurt, especially at the hands of the woman he loved. “Baby,” Clint called out. “Let her go. She won’t be bothering us any more.”

Natasha coughed, rolling to her side, curling in on herself until her legs and arms stopped shaking. She looked up just in time to see Clint disappear, gone in the blink of an eye. No, she wouldn’t allow it. She would get Clint back, get him away from that  _ bitch _ .

Pulling out her cell, she called Steve. “Clint’s gone rogue, and he’s had  _ quite _ the boost. He’s going to need some more… persuasion.” 


End file.
